Audie Cornish

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Audie Cornish is host of All Things Considered, along with Robert Siegel and Melissa Block.

Previously, she served as host of Weekend Edition Sunday. Prior to moving into that host position in the fall of 2011, Cornish reported from Capitol Hill for NPR News, covering issues and power in both the House and Senate and specializing in financial industry policy. She was part of NPR's six-person reporting team during the 2008 presidential election, and had a featured role in coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Cornish comes to Washington, D.C., from Nashville, where she covered the South for NPR, including many the Gulf states left reeling by the 2005 hurricane season. She has also covered the aftermath of other disasters, including the deaths of several miners in West Virginia in 2006, as well as the tornadoes that struck Tennessee in 2006 and Alabama in 2007.

Before coming to NPR, Cornish was a reporter for Boston's award-winning public radio station WBUR. There she covered some of the region's major news stories, including the legalization of same sex marriage, the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese, as well as Boston's hosting of the Democratic National Convention. Cornish also reported for WBUR's syndicated programming including On Point, distributed by NPR, and Here and Now.

In 2005, Cornish shared in a first prize in the National Awards for Education Writing for "Reading, Writing, and Race," a study of the achievement gap. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Cornish has served as a reporter for the Associated Press in Boston. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

I'm Audie Cornish and it's time now for your letters. Earlier this week, we ran a two-part series about what happens when older prison inmates return to the outside world. For two years, NPR's Laura Sullivan followed a couple of aging ex-cons as they made their way through life, not sure if they deserve a second chance.

Kara Walker was barely out of art school when she won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, in 1997. Back then, her early work shocked audiences in part because her murals looked so charming from a distance. Black paper shadow portraits of colonial figures seemed to dance on white gallery walls; but lean in and you'd find your nose pressed up against images of slavery's horrors — mammies, masters, lynchings and sexual violence.

And I'm Audie Cornish. For the last 10 weeks, NPR has been following eight runners who have been preparing for this year's Boston Marathon. We've dubbed our runners the NPR 8 and they've been blogging the highs and lows of their training. Today, we have some excerpts from their audio diaries.

We'll end the hours with an innovative business proposition. When a funk band from Michigan planned its upcoming tour, it had one important condition, all the shows must be free. The band is called Vulfpeck and they decided to finance those free concerts with a new album. It's called "Sleepify."

NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman joins us now to talk about the Pentagon's view on cuts to military benefits. And Tom, we just heard from Quil that retirees feel the military is essentially breaking faith with those who served. But what do Pentagon leaders say to that?

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, Audie, I spoke with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin Dempsey earlier this week and I asked him about these pension cuts and here's what he had to say.

The Senate is still struggling to find a way to pay for an extension of unemployment benefits for those out of work for 26 weeks or more. Majority leader Harry Reid agreed to bring up five Democratic and five Republican amendments in hopes to winning enough Republicans over to get to the 60 votes needed for passage.

Embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was back in the spotlight today. The annual State of the State speech came at an awkward moment for Christie. The Republican governor had not spoken publicly since apologizing last week for politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge. Christie acknowledged the unfolding scandal at the start of his speech.

Today brings a new wave of questions about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. It's no longer just about whether Christie knew members of his team had ordered a traffic jam on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Today we learned the federal government is also investigating whether the Christie administration misused funds earmarked for recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

We're joined once again by reporter Matt Katz of member station WNYC. And, Matt, what more can you tell us about these new allegations?

Poverty and income inequality have long been staples of the Democratic Party platform, but they haven't often been high priorities. This year, that appears to be changing, and what's more, some Republicans seem eager to join the conversation.

Recently we've heard of some big changes at several news organizations involving some of their most prominent journalists. At the Washington Post, the founder of the popular policy site Wonkblog, Ezra Klein, is weighing a departure. And the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are both scrambling to set up dedicated news teams to replace journalists who have left in pursuit of more money and independence. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us from our studios in New York.

We begin this hour in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. Riot police have surrounded the main square, the site of a week's long anti-government protest. Members of one of the main opposition party say armed troops raided their headquarters today and seized computer equipment. Police are also threatening to enforce a court order to drive protesters out of city buildings they've been occupying.

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block in Washington.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish at the studios of NPR West in Culver City, California. We're going to kick things off this hour with All Tech Considered because much of my focus out here this week will be tech. In a moment, I'll introduce you to a Silicon Valley company that has revolutionized the way we watch sports on TV, but first, to the week's biggest tech story.

Twitter is revealing more details about its planned initial public offering. Late this afternoon, the company announced its intention to raise a billion dollars by selling stock, and revealed detailed information about its finances for the first time. We're joined now by NPR's Steve Henn to discuss this peek behind the Twitter curtain. Hey there, Steve.

Audie Cornish talks with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep about his interview Monday afternoon with President Obama. We hear excerpts from the interview, more of which will air Tuesday on Morning Edition.

Fifteen Iraq and Afghanistan vets, many of them disabled, climbed Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on Sept. 11. The climb is the culmination of a three-day hike, which for many of the vets has had the therapeutic effect of reproducing a combat patrol — just without the bombs or bullets.

And I'm Audie Cornish. Apple unveiled two new phones today. One of them, the iPhone 5C, is a lower-priced phone aimed at customers in the developing world. The other, a high-end model, comes with a fingerprint scanner called Touch ID. Now, the unveiling comes as the company faces pressure on several fronts - from rival phone makers, and from Wall Street investors clamoring for breakthrough products.

Trading on the Nasdaq exchange was halted today due to an unspecified technical glitch. The shutdown rattled investors and raised fresh concerns about the safety and stability of financial markets. Nasdaq in particular has experienced technological mishaps, most notably during the Facebook IPO in 2012.

More than 330,000 people filed new claims for unemployment insurance benefits last week. That sounds like a big number — and is a slight increase over the previous week — but it's being taken as some very good news. For a month, now, fewer new people are asking for unemployment insurance than at any time since November, 2007. That's before the Great Recession.

The Justice Department is suing the state of Texas over its strict voter ID law, saying it discriminates against minorities. The attorney general also wants a judge to order Texas to get federal permission before it changes its election procedures.

Witnesses from Afghanistan have testified in the sentencing phase of the court martial of Sgt. Robert Bales. He's admitted to killing 16 Afghan villagers during a nighttime massacre, and a military jury in Washington state is deciding whether his life sentence should come with any possibility of parole.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has teamed up with other tech giants to pursue the goal of providing Internet service to five billion people in the developing world. The group, called Internet.org, says data can be used more efficiently and participating partners can work cooperatively to make access to the web affordable in emerging economies. Zuckerberg makes the case on his Facebook page for how a global Internet infrastructure can be created. But the document doesn't have tangible commitments from Facebook or other participating companies.